Doctors group open to insurance exchanges like those used by government workers, members of Congress

June 18, 2009|By Bruce Japsen, TRIBUNE REPORTER

In an effort to avoid stonewalling President Barack Obama's health-care plan, the American Medical Association voted Wednesday to support new "alternatives" to reforming the health-care system, including those funded by the federal government.

Although the AMA's 543-member policymaking body stripped the words "public option" from an earlier resolution, doctors endorsed a plan to cover the uninsured by supporting "health system reform alternatives."

The AMA's action at its annual meeting in Chicago keeps the door open to one Obama administration idea being discussed in Congress to use so-called insurance exchanges similar to the federal health program used by government workers and members of Congress. Obama addressed the doctors on Monday, seeking their support for his plan.

"People did not want to close the door on alternatives," Dr. Nancy Nielsen, immediate past president of the AMA, said at a press conference Wednesday morning.

The AMA remains adamantly opposed to an expansion of a government-run system like Medicare, which they see as headed to insolvency. "That would be a real mistake," Nielsen said of expanding the health insurance program for the elderly.

The AMA worried Congress might parse the words "public option" and translate any resolution approved by the group to mean they supported a Medicare-like plan or a single-payer form of health insurance.

On Monday, Obama drew standing ovations from AMA delegates when he discussed his yet-to-be-defined public option, which he called an insurance exchange that would preserve patients' choice of doctors and would work like private plans that cover federal employees. Obama insisted that the option of public insurance he envisions isn't a "Trojan horse" for a government-run system.

Throughout the five-day meeting, which ended Wednesday, AMA delegates were adamantly opposed to a single-payer approach to insuring all Americans, because that approach would dramatically reduce the role of private insurance companies. A major concern with a government-run system is that it could lead to price controls.